


In memoriam

by incognitajones



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Coruscant, Gen, Pre-Canon, the author's completely made-up headcanons about memorials for Alderaan, young Ben and Poe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 09:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12679503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitajones/pseuds/incognitajones
Summary: Now Ben was eleven, which meant it was the sixteenth year since the destruction of Alderaan. And since eight was a Great Number, that meant instead of a small family ceremony there’d been a huge public commemoration with thousands of survivors and Senators and planetary envoys and a full-length, formal mourning service.





	In memoriam

**Author's Note:**

  * For [englishable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/englishable/gifts).



“And keep an eye on Ben!” Poe’s mom shouted after him as the two of them took off down the terrace, toward the stairs to the Mirror Garden. 

Ben couldn’t laugh in public today, but he rolled his eyes at Poe, who smirked back. 

They couldn’t run, either, so they kept to a fast-paced, bobbing lope as they weaved through the crowd of dispersing mourners. Until they got out of the main crush, it was like navigating through an asteroid belt: darting from side to side, buffeted by elbows, lekku, tentacles and other appendages. There weren’t many kids, and hardly any were younger than him. Every year, his mother sighed over the aging survivors of Alderaan.

Most years, people held their own private memorials, like his family did. But even then, as the last Princess of Alderaan, his mother had to be seen honouring the dead; she let the holonet drones record their annual ceremony for broadcast. She’d explained to Ben when he was little why that was necessary, and so he tried hard not to show how much he hated it.

Now he was eleven, which meant it was the sixteenth year since the destruction. And since eight was a Great Number, that meant instead of a small family ceremony there’d been a huge public commemoration with thousands of survivors and Senators and planetary envoys and a full-length, formal mourning service.

At least that part was over now. But as he and Poe passed the memorial stone the looming masked figures of the Silent Ones remained in a circle around it. They’d stand there without making a sound all day until they faded into the darkness of night. It creeped Ben out and he averted his eyes, even though he knew they were really just ordinary people on stilts hidden underneath the long midnight blue robes.

“Vader’s balls, these clothes are hot. I don’t know how you stand it.” Poe pulled at the high collar of his tunic, stretching it out of shape. “You sounded good, though.”

“Shut up, I wasn’t singing that loud. There’s no way you could hear me.” Ben could feel his ears firing up. He shook his head, trying to hide them under his hair, but the braids his mom had put in were too tight and nothing moved.

Of course Ben had been roped into the children’s choir for the service, made up of survivors and descendants of survivors. He understood why he couldn’t be left out but he’d spent weeks sick to his stomach at the thought of being at the centre of attention onstage. In the end, it could have been worse. They’d stuck him in the front row, but among a hundred other kids he hadn’t stood out too much.

Besides, concentrating ferociously on singing in tune and in time helped with the biggest challenge of the day: keeping all the feelings that pressed in on him out of his head.

“You know it was just because of mom,” he reminded Poe. “And because my voice hasn’t changed yet.”

“Honestly, that’s not so great.” Poe frowned. “It’s humiliating, the way I squeak every time I try to say something important. I sound like a droid half the time.”

“At least you’re growing.” Ben hadn’t put on a centimetre since last Life Day. He was sick of looking up at everyone he knew. If he was taller, they’d have had to let him stand in the back row of the choir.

He led Poe under the archway into the Mirror Garden. It was quiet now; the tourists from earlier in the day were gone and all the mourners were headed in the opposite direction, toward the Senate chambers for a reception. Something Ben hated as much as his father did, because it meant hordes of people, trays of tiny delicacies he wasn’t allowed to take more than one of, and his mother talking to strangers for hours until her voice cracked, while her back stayed laser-straight but the corners of her eyes drew into the microscopic creases that meant she was exhausted.

Grownups rarely felt one clear thing. It was confusing and frustrating, the way they could be soaked in misery and still burning with rage; they loved his mother ( _our Princess_ ) and hated her ( _why is she alive, and not my Jalna_ ) at the same time. And he didn’t understand why she felt stabbing shame every time someone greeted her with the Alderaani phrase “Our sorrow is shared.”

So he was glad Poe was here, even if they weren’t really friends, because the other boy was an excuse to escape the overstuffed, ornate halls with voices and thoughts bouncing off the high ceilings until he could barely think. When Poe mentioned that he’d never seen the Mirror Garden, Ben had thrown his mother a pleading look, and she’d nodded and told them to go ahead even though his dad didn’t agree, judging from the scowl on his face. “It’s perfectly safe, Han,” he’d heard her hiss. “Security’s been ramped up all over the quarter. They’ll be fine.”

“Whoa.” Poe stopped short, staring.

Ben looked around too. The Mirror Garden was one of Coruscant’s most famous sights; every tourist stall on the planet sold holos and threedee projections and enough flimsies of them to wallpaper Ben’s bedroom three layers thick. He’d never understood why. The Garden wasn’t anything really interesting, like the ruins on Jedha, just a white stone plaza filled with reflective pools and fountains and waterfalls stretched and pulled into gravity-defying forms. Some were so perfectly still you’d swear they were real glass, until your hand felt the cool moisture. Some moved in ripples that turned the figures standing around them into wavering columns of colour and shadow.

Poe peered at his reflection, leaning closer to one vertical wall of water until his nose almost parted the smooth liquid surface. “How do they get it to do that?”

Ben shrugged. “It’s just grav manip fields. Don’t they have those on Yavin 4?”

“Yeah, no.” Poe snorted. “We’re a rural backwater. Some of the heavy farm equipment might have them, but basically, if it can’t grow turnips we don’t get it.” He lifted a hand, his fingertip a millimetre away from the shimmering plane. “Can I touch it?”

“Sure, people do it all the time. It’s not like you can break them.”

Poe grinned and pushed his hand straight through the sheet of water. It flowed seamlessly around his wrist, making his arm look chopped short, like Uncle Luke’s when he took off his prosthetic.

The unending murmur of trickling, falling, running, dripping water surrounded them in a soothing rush of noise. Ben wandered over to his favourite, a rippling pillar of water locked in stasis one drop away from toppling over onto the white pavement. He liked the way his reflection looked in it. You couldn’t tell that blurry, indistinct face was Ben Organa-Solo; it could be any more-or-less humanoid youngling.

But he had a shadow that wouldn’t go away no matter how he moved, and it was in the wrong position for the direction of the light. It looked like a huge dark figure standing behind him. Had a Silent One left its place early and come into the Garden? Ben glanced at the entrance, but there was no-one else in the whole plaza but him and Poe.

Ben turned his back on the fountain, trying to ignore the unease leaking into his head. Why was he so scared? Was it his own feeling, or someone else’s?

He couldn’t stop looking back over his shoulder. Something shadowy and indistinct still hovered in the wavering column of water.

_Don’t be such a baby. Think about what dad would say. It’s just a trick of the light on the water._ Ben shivered and closed his eyes. If he couldn’t see it, he could tell himself it wasn’t there.

“Poe?” he called, ashamed of the quaver in his voice. “Let’s go back.” 

He wanted to be with his mom, Uncle Luke, even his dad. Anyone he could convince himself was strong enough to protect him… 

From what—his own head? He shivered again.

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a "trick or treat" prompt fill on [Tumblr](https://incognitajones.tumblr.com/post/167140347063/i-managed-to-delete-the-original-ask-somehow-but), but turned out long enough to post on its own.


End file.
